Brother Dege – Scorched Earth Policy

Brother Dege, who recently found fame for his track ‘Too Old To Die Young’, being featured in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’, produces a stunning album in the form of Scorched Earth Policy.

Admittedly I might be a bit biased because slide blues is my favourite type of music. It’s something about the grissle in the blues that resonates in my soul. I think perhaps it’s the blues history that does that for a lot of people. Nevertheless, whether it’s my kind of music or not this is an album that is covered in brilliant tracks. From the thick, kick drum driven ‘Pay No Mind’ through to the harmonica led penultimate track ‘Jones For War’. The latter has a sort of eeriness to it, almost Space Oddity quality, with breaks for spoken acoustic work, Brother Dege never fails to lose the listener. The spellbinding ‘Yellabone’ is another corker that simply cannot be missed.

It’s tough to know which is the star, Brother Dege’s raspy growling voice or the hypnotism that seems to fall off his guitar as if he’s not even playing it as it comes across so naturally. Then there’s the echoed, phaser psychedelic production that resounds throughout the album, popping up all over the place, which comes out so perfectly in ‘Way of The Lamb’. All of this alongside driving, yet natural and unforced drums, makes for an incredible journey through Brother Dege’s soul.